Left In Country Vet Struggles To Free Wife`s Family From Hardships Of Vietnam.

October 2, 1990|By LYDA LONGA, Staff Writer

Ken Deas has spent most of his life surrounding himself with the family he never had.

Growing up an only child in Texas City, Texas, and losing his parents when he was a teen-ager, Deas always longed to have a real family of his own.

So for the past 15 years, Deas, who lives in the unincorporated Miami Gardens area of south Broward County, has spent his time and his savings bringing his wife`s family from Vietnam.

That is where Deas, 58, a retired Air Force sergeant major, fought for his country for five years and lived another six years until Vietnam fell. It`s also where he fell in love, got married and decided that he was going to do some good.

``When I was in Vietnam, I saw a lot of suffering, a lot of pain and a lot of injustice,`` Deas said. ``But after I met my wife and her family, I also saw a lot of love, understanding and sharing.

``Since I never had a family of my own, that was the first time I had ever seen a real family in action and the first time I had felt that I was part of a real family,`` he said.

In 1975, though, the family that Deas had grown to love crumbled when South Vietnam was overtaken by the North Vietnamese Communists.

Deas, with his wife, Nguyen, was forced to flee his civilian job with LTV Aerospace and the country, leaving behind Nguyen Deas` family -- her mother, four sisters, a brother and a slew of nieces and nephews.

Once the Deases were able to settle down in south Broward, they set out to retrieve the family they had left behind.

``We had learned from Nguyen`s mother, who was the first one that we got out in 1976, that the government over there expected to get paid certain monies if a family was going to leave for the U.S.,`` Deas said. ``We started sending money little by little to get Nguyen`s sisters out.

``We sent first for two sisters in 1980 who were the sickest and had the smallest children.``

The process of bringing Nguyen Deas` two sisters to the United States took almost one year and several thousands of dollars. Two years later in 1982, Ken Deas tried to bring her younger brother, Sin, and his wife and children over, as well. That took another 1/2 years because Sin, who now lives in Pembroke Pines, was held up for several months in Thailand.

Having lived in Vietnam from 1964 to 1975, Ken Deas explained that once a family is ``paid for,`` they are spirited out of Ho Chi Minh City -- formerly Saigon -- during the night via airplane to Bangkok, Thailand, where they are kept under guard in a hotel for 24 hours.

``Once they get to the hotel, the U.S. Embassy sends a cable and lets family in the U.S. know when their Vietnamese relatives will be arriving,`` he said. ``I have already spent almost $40,000 in the past 15 years going through this process and bringing Nguyen`s two sisters and her brother.``

Nguyen Deas, 45, looked at her husband and smiled.

Her face suddenly turned serious, though, when she recalled the bleak existence she and her family endured in Vietnam.

``I have seen people dropping dead in front of me from injuries and from hunger. I have seen people dragging themselves because they were so hungry they could not walk. I have watched people lying on a cracked sidewalk crying because they were in pain.``

``I am very happy that Ken has helped my family,`` Miller said. ``He took us out when we were hungry and sick.``

The Deases are trying to bring the last of her family members still in Ho Chi Minh City. Nguyen Deas said her two oldest sisters, ages 50 and 53, are jobless and hungry.

But Ken Deas said he is having a tough time bringing the women out because the government requires physical examinations of anyone leaving the country and Nguyen`s two sisters have not been able to get one.